


Until You See The Whites Of Their Eyes

by leomona



Series: Don't They Know It's The End Of The World [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Coursers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 05:48:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10237220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leomona/pseuds/leomona
Summary: After Bunker Hill.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Chronologically, this comes before The Third Option. 'Coursers' and 'Angst' makes a decent summary all on its own, really.

The friendly greetings and questions of the merchants rise up around me, marred only by Myrna's sour questioning about where my synth is hiding. I try to still the shaking of my hands enough to get my key into the lock, and call back – well, I call back something, anyway. Enough that nobody tries to follow me inside my Diamond City home, and that's all I want at the moment. I lock the door again behind me with the deadbolt, scavenged from Hardware Town at the same time as the Wall's paint, then collapse to the floor like a puppet whose strings have been cut, burying my face in my knees.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, rocking in place. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I hear a high-pitched whine from somewhere, then after a moment realize it's coming from me. _You didn't have any other choice,_ I try and tell myself, and the keening intensifies. _He would have killed them all._

Their faces flash through my mind, then; all the Coursers I've met, and those few Coursers I've killed. Z2-47, the first of both groups, dead before I knew any more than that the Institute had taken Shaun and there was something in the synth's head that might help me get my son back. A death I wish hadn't been necessary, sure, but one for which I lay the blame at Shaun's feet much more than my own. Next, a sea of black coats, faces blurred above them and designations never learned – or simply forgotten as I stumbled through the Institute's halls, my first days there. Third came X6-88, initially such a suspicious presence – both to me, and of me – and now one of my best friends in this treacherous new world, much as he'd dislike hearing me voice the sentiment. X6-88, who will surely never forgive me if he learns the truth of what I just did.

A month or two after I reached the Institute came Ticonderoga. Dez, sending me out to check what happened after they went dark. _If you find a Courser there, kill it,_ she ordered, and it was her choice of pronoun that bothered me the most in all she had to say. X9-27 waiting when I came out of the elevator, questioning my presence while the body of High Rise lay cooling on the floor behind him, and only one thought in my head as we stood there. _A shift in the assignments handed out to them, and it could be X6 you're being asked to kill, while this one's been travelling around with you for months_.

_Carry on, then,_ I told X9-27, nodding to him in tacit approval as I left, and trying not to look at the faces of any more of the dead Railroad agents along the way. Dead synths, too, maybe; I never asked, later.  _Thought it better to avoid that fight,_ I told Dez when I got back, only the latest in the increasingly long line of half-truths I'd started giving her at some point. It was after that, after Ticonderoga, that I first suggested maybe the Institute and the Railroad didn't have to fight, told Dez not all the scientists were so set on their current course, that even the Director seemed willing to listen to me, now and then. And it was after Ticonderoga, after the loss of High Rise and all the other agents there, the loss of yet another of their safehouses and sanctuaries for synths on the run, that Dez so emphatically rejected the idea that there could ever be peace. After Ticonderoga that I returned to the Institute, heart heavy, just in time for Shaun to ask me to go to Bunker Hill and meet X4-18.

A sob rises in my throat and I choke on it; suddenly, the ash and muddied blood streaking my skin and armor is intolerable and I stand, shedding my protection as I stumble my way over to the basin of freezing washwater. I scrub frantically at my hands until the combination of cold and harsh handling leaves them too numb to hold cloth and soap any longer, then drop to the ground once more, unable to allow myself the comfort of a chair.

_B2-57,_ I think.  _You did this for her; her mind would be gone by now if you hadn't. Y9-15. Z3-22. F3... F6... fuck, fuck, fucking hell, what the fuck was his designation? For his sake, you murdered someone who was just as much a victim of the Institute as any of them, and you can't even remember his designation?_

_Did any of them have names?_

Slowly, I start pulling myself back together; images of the bloody mess that was the back of X4-18's head after my rifle shot, countered by memories of the four runners' disbelieving, grateful thanks. The _hope_ in their gazes, replacing Courser eyes milky-filmed in death. _It was so easy with him, next to Z2-47,_ I think, almost wistfully. _But then, Z2-47 was expecting it. You gave him the chance to fight back._

"I can't do this again," I say aloud, my voice almost startling me with its composure. "There's a better way; there has to be. I just have to find it."

The radio on my Pip-Boy crackles as if in response, and I glance down. It's the short, quiet pattern I'd agreed with the Institute's field communications team – sufficient to let me know they want to talk, but not enough to broadcast my location to everyone nearby and get me killed if it's a bad time. I consider ignoring it – they're well enough used to delays, it's probably just a request for a status update, and the longer I can put off having to lie about why X4-18 won't be coming back, the better. But in the end, the slim chance, the hope I so desperately try to crush, that Shaun might be _worried_ for me won't let me stay silent; I pick up the Pip-Boy and tune the radio, then fiddle with the mechanism Dr Li installed on the side.

"Prescott here," I say crisply, cloaking myself in professionalism.

"Institute receiving your signal, Ms Prescott," a carefully modulated voice replies. Most likely one of the synths, then. "Father requests that you join him on the roof of the CIT rotunda."

"What?" I ask, startled.

"Repeat: Father requests -"

"I heard you," I interrupt. "Why _there_?"

"I was not given that information, ma'am," the voice replies. _Definitely_ one of the synths. "My orders were to contact you and transmit this message."

"All right, then," I sigh, pushing myself up off the floor. "I'll be there shortly. Prescott out."

"Acknowledged," the synth says, and my radio goes quiet.

_Shaun out in the Commonwealth itself,_ I muse as I strap my armor back on, giving the pieces a cursory, absent-minded wipe to clean them up a little.  _Now that's something new. All right, Naomi, you've got a performance to give. You want that third option, want your peace? Go earn it._

 


End file.
